My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Thirty-one

Thursday, 5 January, 1989
Frankfurt am Main to Oostende

FRANKFURT-AM-MAIN-- The object in coming to Frankfurt was to visit Richard Meier’s Kunsthandwerk Museum and its contents. And happily, it was quite within walking distance, across the river via the Friedensbrucke, along the Main on the Schaumainkai, and there you are.

Weather was gray and misty again today, but Mr. Meier’s pure white building showed itself well in it, regardless. The communicating spaces-- ramps, hallways, stairs-- are all lavishly equipped with large windows and skylights, so it seemed light inside in spite of the weather.

The exhibition galleries have to exclude the natural light, of course, in order to protect the artifacts. And they were worth protecting. Eric* would kill to see all those furniture pieces by Van de Velde, Josef Hoffmann, and Rietveld! Me, I wished it were a shop and I were a millionaire: I’d be saying, "I want that one, and that one, and that one . . . "

As well as the early 20th Century work, there was also a modern gallery with ceramics and glass. Of course I think of the Art Institute of Kansas City and its ceramics program . . .

After I’d seen the Kunsthandwerk exhibits I took the time to go back outside around the museum and photograph the exterior some more, including its relationship with the original Villa Metzler. Very nicely done.

I didn’t have a lot more time in Frankfurt, since I had to catch the train for Belgium and Oostende around 2:30 PM, in order to get the ferry for Dover first thing tomorrow. But I squeezed in a bit more pleasure crossing the Eisener Steg (the Iron Footbridge), which I liked very much, and walking into town to the Römerberg Platz. Beautiful half-timbered townhouses and shops, with beautiful things.

I grabbed myself something to eat at a Koffeehaus. After that, looking in the window of a stationer’s, I saw something I simply had to have. It was a 1989 wall calendar, and the decoration for each month was a photographic recreation of an English Arts and Crafts wall tile. Not only that, but these images were printed on semi-gloss vinyl sheets and anchored to the calendar pages only along the top, so they could be pulled off, their backing removed, and then stuck to your bathroom wall or wherever you preferred.

I dashed in and bought it. Then, still dashing, I did something that due and heartfelt devotion to Art demanded I do before leaving Frankfurt: I passed out the top of the Römerberg, through Paulsplatz with its great domed Kirche, through the little streets, and around to the Großer Hirschgraben to the birthplace home and museum of Johan Wolfgang von Goethe. Had time to do no more than to kiss my hand to the author of so many poems set to music by Schubert and others . . .

Then it was on by and continuing my counterclockwise career back to the hotel to pick up my bags and get me and them over to the Hauptbahnhof on time for the train.

ON THE TRAIN-- It’s a lovely journey. A ways out of Frankfurt, the Main runs into the Rhine and the train tracks run alongside the river. Not exactly your classic Rhine River boat cruise, but I got some of the same views of villages and Kirchen in the valley and castles and Weingarten on the hills.

Annoying, then, that I couldn’t remember the words of that poem I learned in Latin class back in Philadelphia, the one that starts

Quis color illa vadis

and goes on to say something about the "monte Mosellam,"† how the vineyards were reflected in the mirror of the river. This river wasn’t the Mosel, but it felt appropriate anyway.

The train stopped for a goodish while in both Bonn and Köln. From what I saw of it from the window, Beethoven’s birthplace looks like it’d be a beautiful city to visit.

Probably should’ve been catching up on my travel journal, but I spent most of the ride staring out the window at the scenery, even when that was only people’s back gardens and German factories and supermarkets. The rest of the time I was mentally spinning out a romantic fantasy in which I magically go back in time and end up lost and confused in the woods near La Côte St. Andre, and one of Hector’s sisters finds me and takes me back to chez Berlioz, where the (currently-unmarried) eldest son of the family just happens to be visiting from Paris, and well, hey, it was very relaxing and entertaining . . .

When we pulled into Bruges I was really, really wishing I had a day or two more on my EurailPass. Seems a pity to go through Belgium and effectively skip it altogether. But I’ve checked, and all my train travel has to be completed by midnight.

So it was on to the ferry port of Oostende, where I was directed to a small hotel across a bridge, not far from the train station.

OOSTENDE-- Here I am at the Hotel Capricorne at Vindictivelaan 31, which boasts a bar and a restaurant, too. I didn’t feel like exploring whatever there might be of the town-- it was dark by the time I checked in, I was tired, and it’s rather confusing here, with the piers and bridges and canals and inlets and so on. So I stayed put and marked the end of my Europe tour with a dinner in the hotel restaurant.

The meal looked more towards England than back towards Belgium or any part of the Continent. Steak frites and chips, the most promising option on a menu obviously aimed towards Britons who have no interest in "that forrin muck." Boring, familiar, tasteless, and tough. Reminded me of what I ate on the ferry coming over.

The service, however, reminded me of the café in Lyons. I was the last one in the restaurant and the waitress (who may also have been the hotel owner or one of them) disappeared into the kitchen after bringing me my food. She may have gone on out the back door and jumped off the dock for all I knew, for it got later and later and I never saw her more.

It got so late, it was past 10:00 PM and I couldn’t wait any longer. I had to get to bed to get up early to catch the Dover ferry. So I did the rude but effective thing and presented myself at the kitchen door to ask for the check. Got it, paid, and returned to my room for my last night on the Continent-- at least for awhile.
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†By Decimus Magnus Ausonius (A.D. 310-395); part of a larger work called "Mosella":

Quis color ille vadis, seras quum protulit umbras
Hesperus, et viridi perfundit monte Mosellam?
Tota natant crispis juga motibus: et tremit absens
Pampinus, et vitreis vindemia turget in undis.
Adnumerat virides derisus nauita vites,
Navita caudiceo fluitans super aequora lembo
Per medium, qua sese amni confundit imago
Collis et umbrarum confinia conserit amnis.

Obviously, though, I’d forgotten not only the words, but also the grammar. If I should locate the translation I did in class, I'll append it. Seems like cheating to use someone else's.

My Cut-Rate Grand Tour, Day Thirty

Wednesday, 4 January, 1989
Karlsfelden* to Saßenberg*, Bebenhausen, and Tübingen;
to Stuttgart and on to Frankfurt

Friedl* and Anni* did us the honors of the region this morning. First stop, Friedl’s church in Saßenberg. The others were ahead of us and by the time Friedl, Theo*, Phoebe*, and I got to the church, Anni, Chrissie*, and Pete* were already waiting there.

The church building, which I think is dedicated to St. Michael, is a small stucco structure with stone facings and a half-timbered cupola. They’ve recently redone the interior and renewed the Scripture passages inscribed around the edges of the wooden balcony. They had a big Christmas tree, with electric candles, set up by the elevated pulpit, with a smaller tree and a creche arranged at the pulpit’s base.

Friedl’s vicar was there and took pictures of us all with our own cameras.

After that, we drove over to the old Cistercian monastery at Bebenhausen. It struck me how different German Medieval architecture is from English or French. Much more blocky, less intricate or decorated or pointed.

Though I guess you couldn’t say that of the great tall roof of the monastery. It seemed to reach two or three storeys high, all pierced with little windows. Friedl said that’s where the monks slept.

The other thing that hit me was how different it was visiting the church here from how it was when I visited all those cathedrals and abbeys in France and Italy. In those churches, by myself, they were churches first and foremost. I was impelled first to offer an act of worship, to pray, before I did the architectural tourist thing.

But here, in a group of my friends, it was sightseeing and rubbernecking all the way. It made no difference that Chrissie, Friedl, and Theo are all theological students, or that Pete, Anni, and Phoebe are or might soon be theological students’ spouses. The dynamic was totally different, and I couldn’t influence it in the least. Losing the sense of holiness was the price I had to give for having good company.

For lunch Friedl took us all to his theological college at the University of Tübingen. We ate in the Mensa with the other students who were still hanging around in the vacation, and I had a cabbage dish (Kohl) which for the first time in my life I found appetizing and good.

I had to be getting on, since I’m pretty sure my train pass expires Friday and I’ve got a thing or two yet to see before then. So Friedl left the others at the Uni while he drove me and my luggage (already stowed in his trunk-- the bags, I mean!) back to Stuttgart. I insisted he didn’t have to park the car to carry my things into the Bahnhof for me, so I thanked him and we said our farewells at the curb.

Having stashed the bags in a locker, I got out my Stadtplan and found my way on foot to James Stirling’s Neue Staatsgalerie.

Something funny on the walk over. I was standing at a corner, waiting to cross, when the driver of the approaching car saw me and stopped to let me go ahead. If he’s a typical German driver, they’re the most polite I’ve encountered so far. In Paris it seemed like a challenge game-- if you could get the Parisian driver to meet your eye, he’d concede and you, the pedestrian, could pass. While in Oxford--!? They’re vicious. They won’t meet your eye if their lives depended on it. They won’t even stop if you’re in the crosswalk. I’ve had to jump back on the curb more than once at that corner at Parks Road. This here is much better!

The Staatsgalerie turned out to be a double delight, both for the art and even more for the architecture. I didn’t like the look of the building all that much when I saw it published in Architectural Record a few years ago. Seemed like Stirling was being gimmicky for the sake of being gimmicky. But now that I’ve seen it in person, I can see how its curves and dips, its ramps and its terraces and its striped stonework echo, reflect, and bow to the great vineyard-girdled Weinberg outside the city. The sun was out this afternoon, gelobt sei Gott! shining full on the mellow stonework. Duty became pleasure as I spent more time exploring and photographing the building as a building than I did actually looking at the exhibits.

I had to cut my visit shorter than I would have liked because I still had to catch the train for Frankfurt late this afternoon. Didn’t want to arrive too terribly late.

Returned to the Hauptbahnhof, retrieved my luggage, and checked the Departures board. Hurray! A train to Frankfurt-am-Main on Gleis 8 a little after 4:00 PM, ten minutes from now! Got out to the platform where the train was waiting, got on, and deposited myself and my luggage in a compartment otherwise occupied by three businessmen.

The train got on its way and after a little time, the conductor appeared to check our tickets. The businessmen presented theirs and I showed my EurailPass.

At once the conductor seemed to be asking me where I was going! I say "seemed" because of course he said it in German and it didn’t make sense-- after all, the EurailPass is good anywhere in continental Europe, why did he care where I was going?

He repeated the question and I guess I was looking pretty daft, because one of the businessmen said in English, "He wants to know where you are going."

"To Frankfurt," I told the conductor.

To which he replied something like, "Nein, nein, meine Fraulein! Das ist nichts die Zug zu Frankfurt, es ist die Zug zu Nürnberg!"

Between him and the English-speaking businessman I was given to know that not only was this the train for Nuremberg, Nuremberg was also about two and a half hours east of Frankfurt. Nein, nein, Fraulein, you do not want this train.

I was a little nonplussed-- I mean, how did he know I wasn’t a history student going to Nuremberg to study the famous Nazi war crimes trials right on the site? Besides, I hear they’ve got a very fine castle there, very worth seeing!

I suppose, though, that the conductor’s conviction that no tourist in her right mind would go to Nuremberg of her own volition served me well. I think day after tomorrow’s the last day on my rail pass, but I could be wrong, I haven’t counted lately. So I couldn’t exactly say, Hey, long as I’m on this train, I think I’ll go see Nürnberg anyway! I could return to Oxford on Saturday or Sunday if I liked, true, but it’d mean buying extra train tickets for the last legs. And more food and lodging. No. Can’t afford that.

The conductor saw that I was put down at the next stop, the first one out of Stuttgart, and pointed to the Gleis that would return me to the Hauptbahnhof where I could start over. It was a commuter rail station, starting to fill up with workers returning from their jobs in the city. I liked being there this sunny late winter afternoon. It was another view of the city and everyday German life, and as I waited for my train I could pretend I lived there and went through there every day, myself. Fun, like trying on someone else’s clothes for dress up.

Once I got back to the Hauptbahnhof, I again checked the Departures board. Oh, golly. There was my mistake. I’d read a 5 for an 8!

This time I made it to the correct Gleis and onto the correct train. The one I caught got me to Frankfurt after dark, sometime after 8:00 PM.

Picked up my bags and walked out the front entrance of the Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof to get my bearings. Standing there on the sidewalk looking into the darkness, it came over me how tired I was. No, I was not up to walking off into town (lugging the luggage) trying to find an interesting hotel from the Frommer guide. I turned around, went back in, and found the Tourist Information Desk.

Turns out Frankfurt is very full tonight. There’s some convention in town. But look, here is the Hotel Tourist just a few metres away from the Hauptbahnhof, for the equivalent of $40 US per night! Would I allow the Information clerk to book me in there?

Well, you know me. Confront me anything with the word "Tourist" in it and I run like hell the other way.

On the other hand, it was dark, it was late, it was trying to rain, I was in a strange city dark and late and in the rain, and I was tired. So I conceded and let him call.

Then having been shown on the Stadtplan where the Hotel Tourist was, I shouldered my load, went down the street, presented myself at the check-in desk, and was shown to my room.

It could have been worse . . . I guess . . . the really annoying and awkward thing was that the heating was going full blast and there was no way to turn it down, and my room gave directly out onto the fire escape. How safe in case of fire! but I opened the window and looked out and saw that anybody could climb right up it. No ventilation stop on the window, either. So I had a choice between suffocating or burning up with the window closed and locked, or opening the window for relieving air and risk being invaded.

In the end I went to bed in my underpants and a sleeveless undershirt, cracked the window about four inches, and prayed.